KUNCI in Auckland as part of Politics of Sharing exhibition

Exhibition dates: March 4 – April 1, 2017
Venue: ICL Building, Level 7, 10 – 14 Lorne Street, Auckland Central
Open 10am – 6pm Tuesday to Friday & 11am – 4pm Saturdays
Every exhibition is a collectively shared form of an ideal, intellectual, public “mental” space, bringing together co-authors, points of reference, and forms of knowledge. This provisional map is a constant negotiation between discussion partners with their mappings of time and space, reflecting their individual realities. As a presentation, an exhibition allows public access to its makers’ latest editorial decisions, final data-rendering and temporary design structure. What happens when it is born as an idea in one hemisphere and moved to another? How does it become an ongoing exhibition process starting with a research visit, an exchange of artist residencies, and experimental open studios? Under what conditions can an exhibition continue to develop content internationally along with local cultural codes? What happens to this cultural context, intellectual climate and everyday realities and how can these communicate with diverse audiences?

In Politics of Sharing an antipodean perspective crosses with a Continental/European approach to create a trilogy of exhibitions with unfolding content in three phases: Berlin, Stuttgart and Auckland. Departing from the organisational challenge of being produced in between two hemispheres the project naturally involves questions around sharing, distributing and resourcing, but also respectfully aims to learn from Māori knowledge to challenge a “Westernised” currency. Based on possible translations of some of its key references -such as marae, wānanga, and whakapapa- into a contemporary art context, the exhibition intends to create open conversations about the ways which define how we live together on our planet.

The exhibition “Politics of Sharing” has been developed in collaboration with Germany’s ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), an institutional structure that promotes cultural dialogues; it was first launched in ifa’s Berlin gallery, and later travelled to Stuttgart during 2016.

For this exhibition, KUNCI create a Glossary of Commons. The publication of the Glossary of Commons is not intended to provide definite answers to the meaning of commons. Instead it leads to alternative routes where commons can be reimagined and redefined.The glossary presented here can be perceived as a draft, which is open to revision,or even deconstruction. It is comprised of keywords, but better perceive them as questions, links, pointers, assertions, paradoxes, and more questions. They depict our attempt at approaching commons from below to above, from edges to centres, before transferring back to the ground and peripheries. To explore commons is to understand the politics of ecosystem,logic of collective action,and economy of survival.

On Saturday, March 25th, 2017, one of KUNCI’s member, Nuraini Juliastuti is organizing a reading club which entitled, Klub Numpang Baca. The reading session will be held either in Myers Public Library or Auckland Public Library, Auckland, New Zealand. If you are interested to join, please come to 10-14 Lorne St at 11.00am.